2.20.2008

When All You Feel is Grey

I sit here today with many mixed emotions. I found out yesterday, after much anticipation and anxiety, that my job was not going to be eliminated--a hollow victory for me. My company has not been doing well, mainly do to the market's overall decline, and that has pushed my area into another dreaded reorganization. I've been hearing that we really needed this change though. But sadly, some of my co-workers didn't receive such good news. Many people on my floor lost their job, and as I headed into another meeting to hear about our future, my eyes kept welling up.

I have a co-worker that I've known for about two years. Had it not been for another co-worker taking an opportunity with a company just last year, I wouldn't have gotten to know this girl as well. For some reason, I've never flourished in a group, maybe because I tend to just sit back and watch dynamics. But having the one co-worker that I was comfortable around leave, left me exposed to really getting to know another, and my opinion of her changed. This girl takes honesty to a new level, and she is rarely guarded with anyone, which is probably why I didn't bond to her in the beginning. I have a habit of sharing my opinions/feelings/thoughts with only those I am closest to, and sometimes, I bottle them up altogether--completely, opposite of my co-worker. But the more I have hung around her, the more it warms my heart to watch her. The only word that I can think to describe her is fierce. She is so protective of the people in her life, much like a raging mother bear. She never lets someone get away with something that they shouldn't, and I am in awe of that. We also share some really bad experiences as well, though I am the first to admit that hers were much more painful. Sometimes, I still see her react with that pain, and it causes my heart to ache on her behalf because I'm so acutely aware of what she's feeling, and her instinct is all that she has to act with now, and I get that...her job has been eliminated.

In addition, the co-worker that I dated has had his job eliminated, and frankly, it scares me. I have never really talked about him in this blog before for several reasons. Even though he knew I kept a blog, pretty regularly until we started dating, I wasn't sure about talking about him. It just felt weird, beyond weird. I'm also not one to show my emotions so publicly. For instance, if I had written in my giddy stage and were forced to read that, I think I would want to stick a blunt object into my brain. I guess I equate it with running into someone on cloud nine about their love life--six months later you run into him/her, and they announce that they've broken up because the other one was cheating or something. I don't know. I guess I would just be embarrassed of my happiness if I didn't remain that happy or something. All this to say, is that I'm going to talk about him (D). Maybe it just feels safe(r) now, who knows.

D and I moved to Atlanta within a month of one another. It was unique to both be in a new city not really knowing anyone else and having a new relationship and a new place to live. It was a lot to absorb, but something we were really excited about. I think it takes a certain kind of courage and strength to make that kind of leap. Even though our backgrounds were as diverse as they could possibly be, we were pretty like-minded about a lot. The things we wanted out of life and out of a relationship paralleled rather well.

But now, here we are. Not dating and barely speaking. D has to be the most independent person I have ever encountered. He's independent in ways that have never even occurred to me. He has incredible determination, and he's so intelligent in so many arenas. On the other hand, he breaks my heart, what little I feel I have left. He has never pushed me for a reaction like so many people do, but he pushes me for my own betterment, and I hate that. I'm pretty sure altruism has never motivated a taurus in a the history of the human species. Either way, my instincts are telling me that he will end up moving somewhere else, and that just makes everything seem so final between us. Not having him across the way is sad enough to me, but not having him in the state is a whole new level of finality. Part of me keeps wanting to offer to help, but I just have to keep telling myself that he will learn everything one day, even if it's the hard way because that's the only way that he knows how. It's just his survival tactic, even though it's not mine.

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